Simon stopped writing. He went over to a photograph of his mother that hung on the dirty wall of his room, and, rising up on tiptoe, pressed a kiss upon it. Then he tore up what he’d written, neither out of pique nor with much premeditation; simply because it no longer held any value for him. Then he went to visit Rosa out in the suburbs and said to her: “Soon I shall find employment, perhaps in a small rural town, which at the moment I’d find the most beautiful thing imaginable. After all, small towns are delightful. In such a place, you have your old comfortable room, for which you pay curiously little rent. Returning to this room from your place of work is easily accomplished with just a few steps. All the people say hello to you on the street, wondering who this young gentleman might be. The women with daughters are already, in thought, granting you their daughter’s hand — the youngest daughter, no doubt, the one with curly ringlets and dangling, heavy earrings on her tiny ears. At work you’ll soon have made yourself indispensable, and the boss would be happy to have made such an acquisition. After returning home in the evening, you’d sit in a heated room, and the pictures on the walls would be gazed at, one of which might perhaps represent lovely Empress Eugenie and the other a revolution. The daughter of the house would perhaps come in and bring me flowers, why ever not? Are all these things not possible in a small town where people welcome one another so affectionately? One day, however, during my warm bright lunch break, this very same girl would knock shyly at my door — a door dating, by the way, from the Rococo period — would open it, come into the room and say to me, tilting her head to one side in an infinitely delicate gesture, ‘How quiet you always are, Simon. You are so modest and make no demands at all. You never say: I need this or that. You take everything as it comes. I fear you are dissatisfied.’ I would laugh and reassure her. Then suddenly, as if the oddest feelings had come over her, it might occur to her to say: ‘How quiet and beautiful the flowers are on the table there. They look as if they have eyes, and it seems to me as if they’re smiling.’ I would be astonished to hear words of this sort on the lips of a small-town girl. Then I would suddenly find it quite natural to go walking with slow steps toward the one standing there hesitantly, place my arm about her figure and kiss her. She would permit this, but not in such a way that one might be tempted to indulge in unlovely thoughts. She would cast her eyes down before her, and I would hear the pounding of her heart, the rising and falling of her beautiful, round breast. I would ask her to show me her eyes, and she would open them, allowing me to gaze into the heaven of her open, questioning eyes. A long asking and gazing would follow. First there would be an imploring look from her, then I would be moved to look at her in just the same way, and then of course I would be unable to suppress a laugh, and she would nonetheless trust me. How wonderful that can be, in a small town where people say so much with their glances alone. I would once more kiss her oddly curved and bowed mouth and flatter her in such a way that she would have no choice but to believe all my compliments and then it wouldn’t be flattery at all, and I would tell her I considered her my wife, whereupon she, once more tilting her head to one side in that marvelous way, would say yes. After all, how else could she respond with me pressing her mouth shut as one does a child’s, if I covered her with kisses, this magnificent girl now incapable of suppressing a smile of high spirits and victorious pride? Indeed, the victor would be she and I her victim, this would be apparent quite soon, for I would become her husband and thus would sacrifice and present to her my entire life, my freedom and all my desires to see the world. Now I would always be observing her, finding her ever more beautiful. Until the nuptials, I would be like a rogue chasing after all the charms she might let drop behind her. I would watch to see her kneel down on the floor in the evening to make a fire in the stove. I would laugh a great deal, like a lunatic, to avoid always resorting to overly delicate expressions of affection, and perhaps I would often treat her roughly as well just to catch a glimpse of pain in her face. After behavior like this, I wouldn’t hesitate to kneel down beside her bed, secretly, in her absence, and to pray to her with a flaming heart. I might even go so far as to take her shoe, even if it were covered with blacking, and press it to my lips; for an object in which she has placed her little white foot would easily suffice to produce in me a feeling of worship; after all, it doesn’t take much to pray. I would often climb the high, rocky mountains that lay nearby, casually hoisting myself up by the little saplings, passing along precipices, and when I reached the top, just above a rockfall, I would lie down in a yellow pasture and reflect on where I was and ask myself whether in fact a life like this, sharing close quarters with a wife who was dear to me but nonetheless really quite demanding would satisfy me. I would merely shake my head over such questions and with splendidly healthy senses go on sending daydreams down into the valley where this little town lay spread. Perhaps I would weep for half an hour, why not, in order to appease my longings and then would lie there peaceful and happy again until the sun sank, whereupon I would go back down and squeeze my maiden’s hand. Everything would be decided on and bolted shut behind me — but my heart would rejoice in this firm, commanding conclusiveness. Then I would celebrate my marriage and in this way give my life new life. My old life would sink like a beautiful sun, and I wouldn’t cast so much as a glance after it, for I would consider that dangerous and weak. Time would pass and now we would be bending — to give an illustration for our affection — not over flowers but over children and would feel delight at their smiles and countless questions. Our love for our children and the thousand cares they would demand of us would make our own love gentler and all the greater but also quieter. It would never occur to me to wonder whether my wife still pleased me, nor would it cross my mind to tell myself I was living a small paltry life. I would have experienced everything life has to offer by way of experiences, and willingly would renounce all thoughts holding out and dangling before me all the elegant adventures I was missing out on. ‘What can still be called missing out here?’ I would ask myself calmly, with a superior air. I would have become a solid individual, this would be all and would remain all until the death of my wife, who might possibly have been fated to die before me. But I don’t wish to think any further, for all these things lie too far distant in the darkness of the beautiful future. What do you say to all this? I’m always such a dreamer, but you must at least admit my dreams these days possess a certain uprightness and reflect my desire to become a better person than I am at present.”